The Martial Force
by SoraSummers
Summary: A dropout from the Chiss Ascendancy, what does life hold in store for young Clar'saw'nadu? A strange object she found just before leaving the Academy may just lead her to her destiny...or destruction.
1. Chapter 1

Chapter One: Training Day

The frantic drumming of flight boots on hard durasteel pavement echoed down the long corridor separating the dormitories from the launch hangar. Along with the rapid and labored breaths of a single pre-teen girl, the heavy footsteps were the only thing to be heard in the vacant hall.

She'd be chastised for her tardiness, surely, but it would be far worse if she'd not shown up at all. Today was to be her first time making an actual, real-life, non-simulated, hyper-space jump, and missing such a lesson would be detrimental to her future at the academy. The shame it would bring on her family…she couldn't bear to think about it. She was the first to be accepted into the academy from her long line of ancestry; if she failed it would be generations before another of her clan might be accepted again.

The bright orange flight suit contrasted sharply with her pale blue skin. She was much lighter than the average Chiss, most likely a result of a long-dead ancestor having joined with a human -- another of the reasons that her family was so hard-pressed for favors in the military-driven Chiss Society. Her flight goggles bobbed up and down around her neck, while wisps of elegant blue hair swirled around her ears and occasionally caught in her lips. Beneath the goggles and her flight-suit, nestled tightly against her breast, she could feel the cool sapphire stone her mother had entrusted her with when she'd shipped off to the academy nearly two years prior.

It was the only thing she had left of her mother, who'd been killed within a month of her daughter's departure. She still didn't know the details of her mother's demise, only that she no longer numbered among the living. It was her steadfast dedication to her mother, and her family name, that drove her through her rigorous training, even if she had the momentary lapses like the one she was now experiencing.

Although she'd be telling the truth if she blamed her tardiness on the fact that she'd spent the entire night studying for their hyperspace test today, the young Chiss knew it would be of no consequence -- there were no excuses in the Chiss Ascendancy.

She rounded the final corner in a full sprint and burst through the swinging doors into the massive hangar a full ninety seconds late. Quickly scurrying over to the group of eleven students already receiving their instructions, she breathed a sigh of relief that they'd at least not already lifted off.

"…and the coordinates will be sent to you as soon as we leave atmosphere. You will plot them in your nav and go through the proper calculations, and on my count everyone will make the jump together. When we are all at our destination, each of you will plot your own course back to base, I will not be assisting you. There is very real danger in this exercise, and no rescue team will be sent to those of you who cannot correctly plot your jump. Is this understood?"

"Yes sir!" All twelve aspiring soldiers responded, eleven male voices joined by the one female, all in perfect military posture, with arms held straight down at their sides, backs rigid and straight.

"Very well. We lift off in exactly ten minutes. Good luck."

All of the students saluted, then broke apart to fire up their engines and prepare for their test.

"Ensign Clar'saw'nadu." The commander said, and the ensign spun around instinctively.

"Sir."

"You will have one week of kitchen clean-up duty after this exercise…should you return from it. Dismissed."

"Sir."

She saluted and spun around, grateful that her species did not show blush when it rose to their cheeks, due to their complexion. As she wove in and out of her comrades Class IV Claw Ships she swore her own laziness. She'd just picked up dishwashing duty for a paltry extra ninety seconds of sleep. Pathetic.

She scampered up the ladder and into the cockpit of her training claw, firing up the engines almost before the cockpit had completely closed shut above her. She ran a quick maintenance check, both engines were green, shields at 100, internal compensator adjusted appropriately, nav-computer up-and-running, everything checked out.

"Chiss Twelve, ready for launch." She announced, a few full seconds after the rest of her squadron had relayed their own readiness. She hated the generic call name of Chiss, but even more so her designation as number twelve. It was reserved for the worst pilot in the squadron, and while she wished she could say the ranking was due to gender discrimination, internally she knew she truly was the worst pilot of her class. Thankfully, her skills laid elsewhere, most notably in the area of martial combat.

But she had no time to think about that now, as she fired up her ion thrusters to twenty percent -- the standard for hangar takeoff -- and slowly lulled her fighter to the edge of the hangar, waiting her turn.

"Ten, away!"

"Eleven, away!"

"Twelve, away!"

She fired her thrusters up to fifty percent and blazed away from the cliff-side hangar and towards the planet's light atmosphere and the stars beyond. As she checked her diagnostics board and sensor readings for any activity -- a mindless reflex scored into her brain from hours and hours of pre-flight and in-flight drills -- her com crackled on a low frequency that she new to be a private channel.

"You ready for this Sawn?" Whispered Chiss One, far-and-away the most accomplished and prestigious of all the trainees, and the closest thing Sawn -- that was her core name, reserved for friends, family, and subordinates -- had to a friend in the squadron.

"As ready as I'll ever be Rock." She answered, calling him by nickname, a dumb play-on-words of his real name that she'd come up with when they first met, but it'd stuck through their training so that it was the only name she knew him by anymore.

"Cut the chatter Chiss," Came the voice of Chiss Leader, apparently he had the ability to pick up all private channels between the fighters as well. Sawn's cheeks burned again. "We'll be in space in approximately thirty seconds, then you will receive your coordinates and we'll be on our way."

"Acknowledged leader," Replied twelve voices in unison, with military precision. Sawn hated the forced formality she had to speak each sentence in when addressing her superiors, but such was the life of an operative in the Chiss Ascendancy.

Finally entering the zero-gravity of space, Sawn eased her thrusters to ninety percent and readied for her coordinates. A moment later they flitted to life on her screen, and she dutifully copied the numbers onto her keyboard and sent them to the nav, readying it for launch. They were still about three minute's time from the base planet's gravitational pull, so they'd be unable to jump until free of the natural gravity wells that disabled hyperspace travel.

She noticed her hands shaking on the yoke of her fighter, and fought to calm them. Taking a deep, relaxing breath, she willed herself to calm down, trying to imagine this as just another simulation. Although she was only nine years old, she wasn't stupid. She was in a heavily modified claw craft with no weapons and minimal shielding, as well as being only 4/5 the size of a normal fighter. The factory cost of this model was very low, due to its chief training purposes, and therefore, expendable. Her commanding officer wasn't lying when he said no rescue would be sent for lost pilots. If they could not successfully plot a hyperspace jump, then they weren't worthy of the Ascendancy.

In a standard class of twelve, only ten usually lived to see graduation, or at least that is what Sawn had heard. This might seem harsh and immoral to many -- if not all -- other cultures, but that is why the Ascendancy was the ultimate power in the region, only the best of the best made it to active duty.

Finally they were past the planet's natural gravity, and Sawn pressed the 'execute' button, leaning back and watching the stars stretch and then disappear into the nothingness of hyperspace. She sighed. Now she was in dead comm silence for who knows how long; patience was part of the exercise.

She spent the first hour of the flight plotting and replotting dozens of complicated and random hyperspace routes between all kinds of different planets within Chiss space. When she'd bored of that, she spent the next two hours watching a holovid about a martial arts expert -- if her superiors ever discovered she'd programmed a holovid player into her nav unit, she'd be expelled for sure. It wasn't a difficult process, and she knew firsthand that at least two or three of the other students had done the same, and heard rumors that even some of the top tier dogfighters in the galaxy allowed themselves this small luxury as well. When the credits rolled on the holovid, Sawn glanced at her chrono; she'd been in flight for nearly three and a half standard hours. Groaning, she laid back in her cramped cockpit and tried to get a catnap, knowing the claw craft's computer would wake her when they dropped from hyperspace.

Unsettled and uncomfortable at first, Sawn slowly managed to control her breathing, slowing it down to the edge of consciousness, and she felt nearly asleep, although still aware of her surroundings. It was a strange feeling, and in the twenty or so minutes she enveloped herself in it she wondered if all pilots were capable of this semi-awareness state of mind.

But before she could decide on an answer for herself her computer whizzed and beeped, and the star lines shrank and faded until she was once again in normal space…and completely alone!

Not a single claw craft was to be seen from any of her viewports, and the serene feeling she'd just experienced was replaced by a sudden and terrifying panic. She must have programmed her course wrong! She was in the middle of nowhere! Frantically she started smashing buttons on her keyboard, retconning the sequence of digits her computer had received from the commander as opposed to those she'd put in the nav. She went over the numbers a dozen times, and they checked out every time. She hadn't made a mistake, but then why was she floating here so far away from anything she knew?

"Chiss Leader, this is Chiss Twelve. Do you copy?" She asked over an open channel, furtively hoping she'd somehow just managed to emerge on the opposite side of the planet the squadron had gone to.

The empty air and static response chilled her to the bone. Was she going to die out here? She switched her frequency to pick up all signals coming from the planet, only to discover that it had none emanating from it -- it'd been long abandoned.

Checking her fuel, Sawn uttered a muffled curse in Minnisiat, a common trade language in Chiss space, knowing that she had only an hour or so before her tank passed half-empty, and after that making it back to base would be all but an impossibility.

Strangely, the fear that had enveloped her so suddenly had left Sawn just as quickly. Taking a deep breath, controlling her nerves, she got to work, the first order of business was to discover her location. She plugged her exact coordinates into her star chart, and her face fell at the result.

_Unknown Space. Coordinates do not compute._

That was bad; she must be outside of Chiss space. Maybe something really had gone wrong? But she didn't have time to think about it, she needed to act! She searched the region for any signs of hyperspace lanes or airwaves carrying messages or signals, all to no avail; the planet was seemingly cut off from all society.

When she glanced at the planet again, a cool chill ran down her spine…she could almost…_feel _the darkness in that place, as if it was home to monsters and villains. This thought gave her a sudden idea…she cross checked the computer's memory system and storage for its astronomical charts, and realized almost immediately that barely a third of the memory was stored on surface level.

She backtracked and opened up the secondary level, then smiled at her own genius. The nav not only had the Chiss space charts stored within it, but the Republican charts as well, the 'known' galaxy, so to speak. Plugging her coordinates into that axis, the planet name immediately jumped to her screen.

_Lehon; Lehon System._

Sawn frowned. She'd never heard of the planet. Then again, outside of the core worlds like Coruscant and Corellia, she didn't know anymore about the Republican Planets than they did of Chiss Space. She knew the two powers had come into contact in the past, but beyond that, she knew nothing, that kind of information was only for the highest seniority members of the Ascendancy.

But that didn't matter, using the Republican Nav, she managed to find the system closest to what they labeled the "Unknown Regions", aka, Chiss Space, and plotted a course for that system, knowing from there she could short jump into the Ascendancy's territory and plot a course back to base from there.

After double and triple-checking her complicated calculations, Sawn's gloved finger was half an inch from pressing the execute button when something stopped her. She didn't know what, or why, but something told her not to hit execute just yet.

_"Always, always trust your instincts Sawn," Her mother had told her, the day she shipped off to base for training. "It will never bid you wrong."_

Sawn found that she'd absentmindedly gripped the sapphire pendant that hung from her neck through her flight suit, as she often did when thinking of her mother. She saw the glimmer of a tear forming at the corner of her eye, she fought to control it when she realized there was no tear at all, the distant sun had just glimmered over something in space not more than twenty meters from her craft.

Curiously and cautiously, Sawn set her thrusters to a meager one percent, crawling forward towards the mysterious object that'd caught her eye. She cut thrusters as soon as she'd turned and faced the object, now hovering directly in front of her. There was no turning back now. She made a quick check of all the pressure sensors on her flight suit, put the engine on standby, adjusted the anti-gravity measures in her cockpit, and fastened a tethered harness to her unbreakable durasteel belt, then took a deep, calming breath, and released the latch on her cockpit.

Immediately she was shocked by the fierceness of the cold zero gravity, but she knew she'd only have to withstand it for a few scant seconds. She pulled herself along the outsides of her fighter with the utmost care until she could wrap her hands around the object and safely bring it back to the cockpit.

Closing the canopy immediately, Sawn thanked the claw craft designers for their incredible blueprints that allowed her fighter to not be compressed within itself in the zero-gravity, and numbly gazed upon her prize.

Finally ready to hit the execute button, Sawn did so, and spent the entire hyperspace flight admiring the four-sided triangle and its strange glyphs, marveling at the power she inherently knew laid inside.


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter Two: Frustrations

Sawn was angry, Sawn was agitated, and Sawn was frustrated. Currently she was on her knees, scrubbing the kitchen floors in the Chiss Ascendancy Base. She'd been fairly proud of herself when she landed her claw craft in the hangar bay a week prior, ready to relate her tale of finding her way back to base from Republic space.

To say she'd been slightly dismayed when she learned that _all_ the students had faced the same peril, and _all_ returned more quickly than her, would be an understatement. Her cheeks burned as hot as the triple suns of Frist'uckus when she realized how dumb she'd been.

As she dipped her scrub brush into the soapy water yet again she tried to fight away the horrible feeling of _inferiority _to her compatriots. Sure Rocky would try and convince her otherwise from time to time, pointing out that she could defeat even him in martial combat, but his beliefs fell on deaf ears. A Chiss was measured by his -- or in Sawn's case her -- ability in a starfighter. Of course there were plenty of famous Chiss in other aspects, from Mitth'raw'nuruodo's legendary tactical prowess to Sin'pra'bado's unmatched skill in hand-to-hand combat, but they were exceptional cases. For the common, average soldier, like Sawn -- _below average _she remembered -- only the starfighter's were truly respected.

And all of that was only the tip of her frustration. The real problem laid with the mysterious object she'd found floating in the space surrounding Lehon. What was it? She knew it was more than just a blocky triangle. If the glyphs and symbols didn't give it away, it was the aura surrounding it that betrayed its power.

Sawn couldn't explain it, she didn't understand it, but somehow she _knew_ this thing had untold amounts of power inside it. In fact, she was afraid its obvious power would startle or attract some of the other students, instructors even, but so far no one had found it, it lay nestled safely in a corner of the closet in her private quarters, awaiting her return.

She knew nothing about it, aside from its structure. She determined from careful examinations of the seams between each side that it probably opened up to reveal something hidden inside. But what was in there? Some kind of orb or gem of incredible wealth? Some kind of weapon? She didn't know, but she couldn't wait to find out.

"Clar'saw'nadu," Spat the Chiss supervisor overlooking her chores. "You are not concentrating. Use wider, more fluid movements to cover more ground."

"Yes sir." She said, biting her tongue against saying more. She knew the Chiss supervisors were just as hard on the other recruits as they were on her, but it didn't make it any easier to take.

She tried to do as she was told, but the man's biting tone upset her, she was only a child, her emotions were still raw and unbalanced. She scrubbed in wide, long arcs, hoping that she was pleasing the Chiss Commander while at the same time knowing she was failing.

"No no no!" Scolded the Commander, marching forward and vice-gripping her arm in his grasp. He forced her arm painfully into the same wide arcs she'd just completed, squeezing her skin and bringing tears to her eyes. "Like this!"

He motioned back-and-forth in motions that didn't seem any different to her than the one's she'd been performing earlier. "Yes sir." She whispered, accepting her punishment and trying to hold back the tears of pain and shame that threatened to well up inside her.

"What was that ensign? I cannot understand you when you speak weakly."

"Y-yes sir." She tried to repeat, speaking more loudly but failing miserably in keeping her voice calm.

"Snap to attention Ensign! I should whip you for your weakness!"

It was all she could do to bite back a sob, but Sawn tried to straighten her back and flatten her arms to her sides, her trembling shoulders, however, gave her away. She tried to ignore it, pretend like everything was fine, hoping that her attempts to show confidence would make up for her temporary weakness. Of course she knew it was futile.

"Gorash Ensign!" Spat the villainous Commander. "You will never succeed in this Ascendancy if you cannot learn discipline!"

Now she was confused. How had she been anything but disciplined? The confusion added to her overwhelmed emotions, and a single tear streamed down her cheek. "I-I am sorry for d-disappointing you sir."

She tried feverishly to look her commanding officer in the eye, but was wary of doing so because of the tears streaming down each of her cheeks.

"You are not worthy of the Ascendancy."

His words broke what was left of Sawn's will and resolve, and she fell to a mess of tears and heaving sobs to the floor at his feet. "I'm sorry! P-please sir, I promise I'll try harder, I'll do anything! I can make it through the training, I'm worthy, I promise!" She said each word through labored breaths and sobs.

"You will never be worthy. Return to your quarters Ensign, and do not be late for class in the morning."

She was beyond the ability to formulate a proper response, and as such the Chiss commander walked off without further word, leaving the broken young girl to grovel on her own atop the freshly scrubbed kitchen floor.

Sobbing, the young Chiss stumbled out the kitchen door and ran blindly down the halls before running flush into two human arms.

"Let me go!" She yelled, struggling to break free from her friend's embrace.

"Shh, Sawn, its okay, its me, its Rocky," He tried to hold her in a hug, but she squirmed and freed herself, running away from the only friend she had, and the only human among all the Chiss in the Ascendancy. Due to their isolation they shared a special bond, but that didn't matter now.

As soon as she reached her room, Sawn pulled out a duffle bag and rummaged through her sparse belongings, managing to stuff every last bit of her personal artifacts into the red bag, and threw it over her shoulder, ready to leave this place forever.

The sapphire on her neck was cold against her chest, but she ignored it, she didn't want to think about her mother right now, or what her mom might think of her decision. She knew she'd be tarnishing her family name, and that no other Nadu would again be accepted to the Academy, and she only furthered the notion that female Chiss were not worthy of being operatives in the Chiss military.

Lastly, when she was entirely packed up, she opened her closet and pulled the 'triangle,' as she'd come to call it, out from its hiding place, tucking it under her opposite arm. She looked around her quarters one last time, and satisfied that she'd not forgotten anything, she turned her back on the room and strutted down the hallway towards the hangar, somehow knowing instinctively that she would not be stopped along the way.

Ten minutes later she punched in the final hyperspace coordinates and escaped to hyperspace long before any scrambled pursuit could catch her. With the bright starlines of hyperspace surrounding her, Sawn leaned back and smiled, currently satisfied with her decision. The way of life for Chiss was difficult, and those who enlisted in the military had it the roughest of all. Hand-picked by Ascendancy Scouts placed all over the Chiss Emporium, children were taken from their homes as early as the age of five to be trained as operatives in the Chiss Military. Starfighting, hand-to-hand combat, all forms of espionage, multiple language lessons, all forms of ground transportation training, nearly anything a person could imagine was taught to those brought into the Chiss Ascendancy. Most of the time it became apparent around the ages of ten to twelve that the children had a magnificent aptitude for one of these many talents and not-so-much for the rest, and they were transferred to other academies to focus on their one skill.

Very rarely, normally only once or twice a generation, one Chiss youth would show such amazing skill and tact in all aspects of their training that they would be trained as Chiss'sin'ultum; the very highest attainable level of Chiss Operatives. Nobody knew who they were, their identities kept secret, but those who trained with them in the Academies usually knew when one their classmates was special.

That was the case with Rocky. Everyone knew, even though he was only ten years old, that he would be the next 'Sin', which was the core name for the Chiss'sin'ultum. He'd also be the first human to achieve that rank, but due to his heritage…she doubted any of the uptight Chiss nobles would raise concerns over it.

But none of that mattered anymore, the Ascendancy was behind her, her future laid with the triangle sitting on her lap. She still understood nothing about it. She could not open it, she didn't know what she'd find inside it, she didn't even know if it housed anything interesting or important at all. And she still didn't know what it was.

That was one thing she felt herself capable of remedying. The hyperspace coordinates she'd punched in would take her to Csilla, a place of immense knowledge about anything and everything. It was the homeworld of Mitth'raw'nuruodo, and while he was branded a traitor of the Chiss, and exiled from the region, no one questioned his genius, and there were still families on Csilla who were proud of their relation to the great tactician.

But aside from that, the world was famous for its great Chiss Archives, where she should surely find some kind of information on her triangle. Unfortunately she was two standard days away from the Archives, and didn't have an idea in Hesh'kel'sookin what she would do with her time.

The first few hours spelled nothing but fruitless misfortune for Sawn, as she tried in vain to open the triangle.

"Open." she begged it in Cheunh, the official language of the Chiss.

"Open," she asked in Minnisiat now, hoping the common trade language would open the secrets of the triangle.

"Open!" she demanded in Galactic basic, the common language of the Galactic Republic, praying that this language would work as the triangle had been found in Republican Space.

None of the half dozen languages she considered herself fluent in worked, and she didn't even know if it could be opened verbally. She was far to afraid to attempt and open it forcibly, if she unwittingly destroyed the device she'd never know what she'd lost.

Throughout the entire trip, from the moment she'd left her room to now, nearly five hours later, the sapphire pendant pressed against her chest under her flightgear had grown colder and colder as if in protest of her journey. She knew, layers deep inside her sub-conscious, that it was somehow her mother voicing displeasure at the decision. Every time she did something her mom might disapprove of, the gem emitted this icy cold sensation that spread not only over her chest, but her entire body, so much so that she was now shivering in her cockpit.

She knew it would be easy to remove the heirloom, and place it in the storage unit behind her, but she refused to do so. If she was going to deny her mother, she would do so with her head held high. Instead of pulling away from the pain Sawn embraced it, closing her eyes and allowing the cold to seep underneath her skin, it traveled through her veins to her heart and out the arteries on the other side, until every nerve, muscle, tendon, bone, and joint in her body embraced the pain. She used that to fuel her frustration, and she became dimly aware of the stars around her, then the cockpit around her, the seat beneath her, the clothes on her back, the skin on her body, until she delved so deep within herself that only a small part of her was aware of everything around her, and she could feel her tired body rejuvenating itself.

It was the same thing that had occurred to her the week before, in the cockpit of this same fighter, when she'd managed to slip into this serene state of mind. Then it had been patience and calm that allowed her this peace of mind, now it was her embrace of pain and frustration of everything her life had become.

_"Hiya!"_

_"He, huh, hiya!"_

_"Very good Sawn!" her mentor cooed, visibly impressed with her progress. "You are as good a martial artist at your age as any Chiss I've ever seen."_

_A four year old Sawn giggled. "Thank you master. Hee-hee!"_

_"How would you like to spar against another advanced student?"_

_The young version of herself scrunched her nose. "What's a spar?"_

_Her master laughed, dark blue robes rippling from his shoulders down to his knees. "It means fighting against another person, but only for training purposes."_

_Sawn recoiled a bit at the implication. "I dunno master…will it hurt?"_

_Her master, a tall Chiss named Escri'kali'filip, smiled knowingly. "Don't worry Sawn, __you won't be injured at all."_

_She thought she saw her master glance at a man standing in one of the corners of the 'Rikali Martial Arts' building, but she didn't have the time to investigate as her opponent stepped onto the mat across from her. She recognized him as Parth'ack'salig, one of the boys that had begun training here a few months ago, just like her._

_They bowed to each other -- something Sawn had been told she was supposed to do in a fight -- and then he came at her immediately, swinging his fists wildly. Sawn remembered her master's teaching, and instead of throwing punches back she defended, doing what she'd been told was a 360 defense, simply using her wrists and elbows to deflect blows while keeping her stance open so she could easily shift her feet._

_Her defense didn't last for long, however, as her instincts set in. Because her mother, who was watching from the side of the mat with a prideful interest, always told her to bend to her instincts will, and she did just that, quickly moving into action. _

_She felt Thack's punch before he threw it, and Sawn stepped to the side, caught his outstretched wrist with her right hand and pulled the young boy off balance. When he'd fallen forward to nearly a ninety degree angle with the wrist Sawn had grappled, she twisted the wrist and spun on her heel to elbow the poor boy in the nose._

_Ignoring his yelp of pain -- for her master had not told her to stop -- she continued the motion from her elbow and chopped a rigid hand into the pressure point in the crook of Thrack's neck. All thoughts of attack gone, the sobbing boy threw his arms over himself in instinctive defense, and while Sawn had been preparing to plant a roundhouse kick to her foe's temple she stopped, realizing she'd hurt her friend._

_"Thrack?" she said softly, moving over to comfort him. "Thrack, are you okay? Master __Escri'kali'filip said it wasn't supposed to hurt!"_

_His only response was to sob and cry, and Sawn immediately felt regret. "I'm sorry Thrack! I-"_

_She was cut off when her master grappled her arm and dragged her from the mat. She was going to be punished now, she knew. She'd hurt her friend! But hadn't she just been doing what she was taught? _

_But when she lifted her head again, she was not peering into angry eyes, but rather the prideful smile of her mother and mentor, and the intrigued grin of the man she'd earlier seen standing in the corner._

_He spoke to her. "Young Clar'saw'nadu," he spoke soothingly. "My name is Franz'lit'polak. I am a Scout for the Chiss Ascendancy, and I have a proposition for you."_

When her eyes snapped open from the memory, she was pulled out of the state of mind that she'd seemed to slip into while in flight, though she wasn't sure if it was only a flying thing -- or how exactly she'd managed to do it.

She rubbed her eyes, and was about to check her chrono, when the claw craft suddenly dropped out of hyperspace. What happened?

Frantic, Sawn checked her diagnostics screen. Everything checked out, engines, hyper drive, nav computer, everything was fine. Without even glancing out her viewport, she cross-checked her coordinates to the Chiss Star Map, and waited for the results.

Now she glanced out the window to gauge her surroundings. She was shocked at what she saw. Dozens of military ships orbited what she believed to be Krai'chaka battle stations, and those not orbiting were escorting passenger ships to the planet below. Even as she processed all this two claw craft pulled up to her side, and her comm crackled with activity.

"Unidentified claw craft, welcome to Csilla, home of the great Chiss Archives. Please submit your identification and we will feed you your landing coordinates. We hope you enjoy your stay."

Sawn was unable to reply. The computer in front of her confirmed the man's words.

_Csilla, Konsk'rar'Cheski System._

She'd spent two full days in that strange trance? What was happening to her?


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter Three - Escape

A few hours later, inside the cool Expansionary Library, stowed deep away inside the icy Chiss homeworld of Csilla, Sawn realized what a daunting task she now faced. Despite their technological prowess, the Chiss still believed the written word to be the most appropriate conveyor of thoughts. As such, the library was as large as a warship and filled to the brim with an innumerable amount of books. Sure there were computer terminals that organized the information and set her in the right direction, but that would only help so much, especially as she didn't know what she was looking for.

She began by snagging every resource she could find about the Lehon System, and buried herself in book after book for useful information. She didn't find much. As the system and planet existed outside of Chiss Space, they hadn't cared to collect much information on the planet, though one thing about it did stand out.

Apparently the final battle of a great war between the Jedi and Sith was fought in the space over Lehon, with the JedI emerging victorious. The planet seemed to be forgotten in time after that -- over a millennia ago -- all intelligent species having deserted it, Lehon simply hung in space without purpose.

At least that much made sense as far as why it had been chosen as a jump spot for her training, there would be no traffic or interference there.

The world had likely not even been visited for more than a course change in hyperspace jumps since the great battle. So Sawn assumed whatever it was she had laying on the desk next to her must be over one thousand years old. Amazing.

The Jedi most commonly associated with the war were Jedi Master Revan, Sith Lord Malak, and Jedi Knight Bastilla. Of the three, Sawn found the first two the most intriguing, and Revan the most of all. Apparently this Revan -- and Malak as well - had been heroic Jedi Knights, only to fall to the dark side, and begin a war with the Republic. Revan was betrayed by Malak and believed to be dead, only to rise again as a true Jedi and destroy Malak, restoring peace to the galaxy. Revan soon thereafter disappeared, and was never seen nor heard from again.

All very interesting, but none of it had to do with this little triangle, aside from the fact that it'd been found in the same system as Revan and Malak's war. And she didn't even know how accurate these stories might be. She knew the Force existed, all Chiss grudgingly accepted that fact, but she'd never seen it in action, as for whatever reason the Chiss did not seem to breed force sensitives with any kind of regularity, so the allure of the Jedi was lost on many of them.

Still, something told her these events were connected. The Jedi and the Sith, perhaps even Revan and Malak themselves, were directly connected to this strange object she'd found, and she would not leave this library until she knew the answers.

And so she studied. She read everything she could find on Revan and Malak, but to no avail. She read thick books filled with words she didn't know the meanings of but doubted they'd of made a difference if she did. Every mention of Lehon, Revan, and Malak died at the great battle.

She tried to trace lines and lineages, but none of the three had any known descendants, and Sawn started to develop a nagging feeling that she was focusing too much on these three individuals, she was making to many assumptions; she was missing something.

She realized that she'd strayed from her original purpose, and that was discovering the identity of her triangular object. She _knew_ it was related to the Force somehow, and refused to give up. She tried to think logically, but her brain wasn't processing anything useful. If she couldn't come up with it on her own, she'd have to figure it out from another source.

With a sudden burst of inspiration, Sawn quickly jumped to her feet and scurried to one of the nearby bookshelves, thanking the Chiss Gods that so little information was had on the Force and its avenues, so she didn't have to search the library for days to find a simple book.

Finally finding what she'd been looking for, she returned to her isolated table and peered into the table of contents of a book entitled _The Exploits of Luke Skywalker._ Even the Chiss knew of his name. She wagered that he at some point was searching for answers very much like she was now, the only difference being he found them. Hopefully she could use his successes to create her own.

_Childhood…The Rebellion…The Death Stars…The Jedi Academy…_

Hurriedly she flipped the pages to the section detailing the great Jedi Master's attempts to develop and discover new Force users scattered throughout the galaxy. She skimmed over much of the text, but one sentence almost seemed to radiate off the page at her, begging for her attention. …_through the use of the Ancient Jedi Holocrons he'd discovered in his travels, Skywalker…_

_Holocrons._ She'd never heard the word before, but it appeared that Master Skywalker managed to use these to learn and train in the ways of the Force. Her sapphire necklace pulsated against her chest, and Sawn knew she was on the right path. She flipped to the glossary in the back of the text, eyes widening at what she saw.

_Holocron -- An Ancient technology used by Jedi and Sith alike to record their findings in a Force-operated vessel; many great force users of the past have recorded their discoveries and philosophical beliefs into these items._

The description went on, but Sawn was drawn to a small picture scribbled next to the definition; it was a rough triangle, with glyphs and symbols on each of its four sides, about six inches tall and wide.

She turned her head to peer at the object she'd found floating in space. The holocron.

Elated, she returned to the text to figure out how to open it, and was dismayed to discover that each must be opened in a different way, as determined by its creator. She looked at the holocron, and realized she'd just returned to square one. All she'd discovered in hours of research was that the triangular thingy she'd been hauling around was called a holocron, and it contained the knowledge of a powerful force user inside.

But she was no closer to opening it than she'd been when she pulled it from the icy cold of space into her cockpit. She once again felt that icy chill, but realized immediately it came neither from the memory or the hollowed-out glaciers around her.

She was in danger.

Leaving the books as they were and clutching onto the holocron, she snuck her head around the corner, the air _whooshing_ out her lungs as she did so. Three armed guards with the marks of the Chiss Expansionary Defense Fleet spoke with one of the library attendants. From an impossible distance, Sawn somehow managed to catch bits of their conversation.

"Young girl…aged nine…stolen claw craft…runaway…extremely dangerous…"

Even without hearing the words, Sawn would have known they had come for her. She had very little time to ponder her options. She was a skilled martial artist, and had been hand-picked to train in the Ascendancy Academy, but she was only a little girl. Her talents wouldn't save her against three battle-tested Chiss, probably not even against one. Fighting wasn't an option, so therefore escape was the only avenue open to her.

_But how?_

She'd been trained to escape these very kinds of situations, but she couldn't remember that training now. It was very different when in a classroom, being taught the practical rules of escaping volatile situations, and when in the field, being forced to put those lessons to use. And she was drawing a complete blank, she _could not_ recall her training. Maybe she never should have left.

Her mind spun through a thousand different possibilities, her mother's sapphire was frozen to her chest, but she could think of nothing. Her mind quickly emptied of thoughts pertaining to logic, and refilled with screams of panic.

She ran.

The library doors were not far, and she knew she could beat the guards there, but once into the long, icy tunnels separating the various Csillan cities she'd certainly be run down.

"Stop that girl!" one of the Fleet soldiers yelled, and many Chiss onlookers spun their heads at the distraction, dozens of curious eyes following the seemingly harmless little girl, carrying a strange object under one arm, as she sprinted out the library doors at a speed only a seasoned soldier should be capable of.

The crowded streets were a breath of fresh air when juxtaposed to her previous predicament, but she knew she was in trouble. Inexplicably, the Defense Fleet soldiers hadn't left a man at the door, so her escape had been simple. But she knew the numbers, twelve men to a squadron, and as such there would be nine soldiers still out on the prowl for her. She knew better than to run towards the transport she'd come down on, because the DF tracked her this far and would have left men at that exit. There were only three others, and as such Sawn imagined there were two stationed at each exit, meaning eight soldiers on guard duty, three running her down from behind, and one unknown.

She prayed that the unaccounted Chiss did not exist and that the squadron was undermanned, but she doubted it. Her tiny feet hurdled her forward as fast as they could, and she wove in and out between droves of Chiss civilians, her small frame now an advantage in both mobility and sensory; the DF soldiers couldn't see her nor could they move as quickly as she in such a crowded space.

She tried to get a bearing of her surroundings as she ran, but in that aspect her size worked against her, for she couldn't see through the mass of taller Chiss. Rather than panic, however, Sawn just let her feet guide her, as she'd done many times in the past while sparring or flying, her instincts taking control and guiding her body to safety.

A few minutes run into the crowded streets, her pursuit got agitated and pulled out their charrics, and the tables turned against her. Chiss civilians saw a little girl, clutching some item for all she was worth, running away from armed guards, and easily put two and two together. Suddenly she was avoiding not just the soldiers but Chiss civilians as well, and she had to revert to her martial arts training to avoid capture. Luckily these Chiss were not battle-trained and Sawn could dispose of most with simple ankle kicks and groin thrusts, but they slowed her down, until she could almost feel the DF's soldiers breath on the hairs of her neck.

Knowing she had to end this pursuit soon or be caught and tried for theft of a military vessel -- for that's what she assumed they were after her for -- she gave up the street chase and turned to the residential areas, pounding up the marble steps of the first home she found and flinging open the front door.

Again giving herself over to instincts, she shoved past a shell-shocked Chiss housewife and knocked over a heavy table to block the soldiers she even now heard barreling down the hallway behind her. The hallway ended in a swinging door that opened into a small kitchen, where she crashed a tall pile of expensive plates to the ground, along with a few glasses of water and other liquids.

She ran out the back door and into the yard, smiling slightly when she heard one soldier slip and yelp, cutting himself on the shattered glass. She hopped over a small fence and proceeded to the next residence, running through an open door and spinning around a railway to hurry up a flight of stairs. A young Chiss met her at the top, and taking no chance she punched him _hard_ in the groin, and shoved him down the stairs, tripping up the guards scrambling up them. She ran to the corner bedroom, locked herself inside it, barricaded the doorway with a dresser, and jumped out from the open window.

Even as she heard the soldiers blasting the door to splinters with their charrics she landed in a graceful roll on the pavement outside five meters below, three years of training allowing her to do so without breaking a bone, or her stride.

She turned right down the residence line, willing her legs to keep churning even as the lactic acid built and anchored them down, until she came to a tall apartment tower, easily twenty stories high, tall enough to kiss the top of the icy cave. Running inside, she hurried to the elevator and pressed the key for the highest level, and then ran out of the lift and to the stairs down the hall, shutting the door just before the first of the DF guards poured into the lobby. She hurried up to the second floor and ran down the hallway until she came across someone exiting their home. Sawn shoved past the bustling woman and into the residence about the same time all electricity in the building was shut off -- the Chiss now thought they had her trapped in the elevator.

She made her way through the initial hallway to the first room she found with a window, ignoring the screams and curses of the Chiss woman behind her, she checked to make sure no DF guards patrolled the back of the building, and repeated her earlier feat, jumping to the ground, running through an adjacent alleyway and back into the crowded streets. Despite the cold she'd discarded her coat in a nearby dumpster and let her hair out of its ponytail so that it swung freely. Through everything she still clutched the small holocron, it hadn't been damaged at all in the chase.

She breathed heavily, and limped slightly, but was temporarily pursuit-free. She'd now double-backed to one of the out-of-city transports that had earlier been guarded by two DF soldiers, but was now free for her use. She paid the toll and hopped inside, any and all sense of panic leaving her as the shuttle whisked down the icy tunnel.

Csilla was essentially an iceball, with underground cities close to the planet core for warmth, these large shuttles being the only way to travel between the few cities. It was the homeworld of the Chiss, and more heavily defended than any other planet in their territory.

Obviously, that made things a little difficult for Sawn. Nobody would smuggle her off planet -- they wouldn't dare bring that kind of shame on their families if it were discovered they'd aided a fugitive. And she couldn't go to the hangar where her claw craft was docked, she knew she'd never see the ship again.

Although she'd escaped for the time being, she knew other cities would be notified, and she'd quite possibly be detained as soon as she stepped off the transport. She realized now that she hadn't escaped at all, but in her childish panic had rather trapped herself on a tram they knew she could possibly be on. She was headed for certain arrest, and could do nothing about it.

As these thoughts whirled around in her head she felt a soft hand come to rest on her shoulder. She instinctively pulled back and stared into the twinkling red eyes of a Chiss she'd never seen before.

"That was quite the display you put on back there young girl," he said, smiling. "not many Chiss of your age -- of any age -- could slip away from an entire squadron of Expansionist Defense Fleet soldiers."

"What do you want?" she snapped, already weary of being caught, and angry that this man obviously knew she was some kind of fugitive.

He smiled again. "I know that despite wherever or however you may have been trained, you couldn't have possibly executed that escape without other _forces_ at work." He seemed to be very proud with his choice of words, and Sawn found him somewhat alluring.

"You didn't answer my question."

"I want you to learn to embrace that power, and I can teach you how."

"How?"

"Come with me, and I will show you."


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter Four - Discoveries

"Alright, reverting from hyperspace in three, two, one…"

Right on cue, the long starlines disappeared, and were replaced by glimmering white specks draped against the dark backdrop of never-ending space. The system's sun blazed a fiery orange millions of kilometers off in the distance, blanketing the hemisphere of the planet Sawn and her companion now flew towards in light.

Master Jace, the man who'd discovered her on Csilla, sat in the pilot's chair beside her, punching in landing coordinates, adjusting flaps, and messing around with whatever other procedures there were to piloting the ship. Sawn somehow imagined this would be a more majestic and all-encompassing experience; dropping out of hyperspace to lay her sea-blue eyes on her new home planet for the first time, seeing the rest of her life unfold as they swooped through crystalline rivers and layers of emerald tree canopies.

Unfortunately, the planet was mostly barren, huge wastelands scarred the majority of the surface, only a sparse few green societies could be seen, mostly on the outskirts of the planet's wide and vast oceans. The rickety freighter jinked and juked as if they were trying to throw off pursuing enemy fighters, but in reality it was just a near thirty year-old ship that'd been crashed and repaired more times than Sawn thought she could count.

It took an hour from reversion to reach the Academy, most of it spent in an uncomfortable shudder, Sawn fearing the shuttle would plunge into the unfathomable depths of the world's ocean, but Master Jace seemed capable, and they landed in the Academy's outdoor hangar with ease. As soon as her feet touched the ground outside the loading ramp she felt _alive._ The Force was strong in this place, and Sawn was already drinking in its power.

"Come now, young apprentice, I will show you your quarters."

"Yes Master." she responded eagerly, already feeling more at home than she ever had before at the Chiss Ascendancy Academy. Like that Academy, however, the planet she was on didn't have a name, or at least not one that was spoken to the students there. With the Chiss they'd always called it Base, but here all the Masters encouraged the students to call the planet Home.

Walking in military precision behind her Master, Sawn's eyes widened at each of the impossible feats she witnessed. One middle-aged Chiss sat cross-legged, arms placed softly on her knees, in a calm and meditating manner that Sawn would have found completely normal, except the woman was _floating_ six inches in the air! In a circle around her many students levitated small rocks or twigs in front of them, a skill Sawn found herself ready and eager to learn.

Another clearing under the warm sunlight, just past the kids practicing telekinesis, saw a few older Chiss, presumably in their teens, dueling with what Sawn knew to be _lightsabers._ Only two of the students actually dueled, while a few others watched, and some others practiced on their own, following through both simple and complicated maneuvers with their swords of light.

Sawn stopped, entranced by the twirls and motions of the two duelists, as her eyes picked apart little nuances and similarities as the two young boys whirled and twirled about.

_The darker one drops his elbow when he attacks to the right…they're using two different forms, one is for power and the other finesse…what is that small guy doing? His opponent might as well be telling him where he'll strike next. He's going to clash blades high, then flip his wrists to strike low, and turn to smash an elbow in the poor kids face…that was a mistake! When __he spun around he should've grappled his opponent's wrist and thrust his lightsaber into his abdomen, but instead he ducked down and swept at the legs…why does he not attack? The smaller boy is just swinging his saber in a full circle, side-to-side, deflecting and parrying in the same manner every time. If I were fighting him I'd strike to his right, he'd put up a predictable parry, then I'd use the momentum of his block to pivot, and strike diagonally down at his heels. He would pivot half-way and parry, but then I could release my grip on the sword with one hand and grab him by the collar of his shirt to throw him to the ground…_

"Intrigued, are you, my young Apprentice?" her Master's words snapped Sawn from her trance-like state, and her mouth gaped open when she saw the Chiss Jedi Master that'd been overseeing the duel smile and congratulate the two combatants.

"Master, why does she offer congratulations? The boys movements were predictable and rudimentary."

An amused gleam shone from one of the Chiss Master's eyes, but he said nothing of her comment. "Come now Sawn, your days with a lightsaber are still many months, if not years, away."

Sawn's shoulders drooped at her Master's depressing words. Wasn't a lightsaber the symbol of a Jedi? "But Master, how am I to fight without a weapon?"

"Being a Jedi is not about fighting, my young Apprentice," he schooled her. "It is only when peace and diplomacy fail that a Jedi resorts to violence; and only when provoked, never does a Jedi raise his sword without proper cause."

Sawn already began to realize how different this society was than the one she grew up with. The Chiss were militant at heart, and everything about their society revolved around war. Although she understood the forbiddance of a preemptive strike -- those were not condoned in the Chiss military -- she still thought the Jedi philosophy was too passive.

But she also knew that her Master was wise beyond anything Sawn had ever known, and trusted his judgment. At the same time, she wondered how these Chiss came to be as they were, and further more, how she'd not heard of this place before. She'd always been under the impression that Chiss were simply incompetents in the Force, and yet here she was in a place filled with dozens, maybe even more than a hundred, young Chiss adepts learning the ways of the Force.

She supposed in the grand scheme of things that wasn't much, but was certainly more than she'd realized. If her Master felt her questions through the Force he made no move to comment on them, instead walking slowly over the matted grass at the base of the bunker they'd been walking towards.

The air was cool and crisp inside the building, but Sawn's years in the Ascendancy Training Program kept her from shivering. A long staircase spiraled downwards towards what Sawn assumed were the living quarters of this facility; the bunker itself was for nothing more than show, it appeared the entire complex was completely underground.

Master Jace lead her down the hallway of the first floor they came across -- looking down Sawn saw there were easily six or seven more levels -- explaining that the newest students began at the top floor and slowly worked their way down as they progressed in the Force, each level holding new facilities and areas where more advanced Force lessons would be taught. It was once a student reached the last floor that they were deemed ready to take the Jedi Trials and be promoted to the rank of Jedi Knight. At that point the Knight could choose whether they'd like to continue their learning at the Academy and perhaps teach lessons themselves, or journey out into the world on missions and other Jedi endeavors.

But as Sawn understood it those moments were a distant gleam in her future, most likely it would be ten to twenty years before she'd be allowed to take the trials, and from what Master Jace said, it was rare that one would be appointed a Master before the age of thirty. Sawn wasn't sure if she even had what it took to become a Master, but she was certainly going to try. She'd shamed her family by abandoning a life in the Chiss Military, the only way she could atone would be to become a Jedi Knight.

At the end of the long first-floor hallway Master Jace finally stopped, motioning for her to enter the last doorway in the corridor. "I will leave you here to unpack and ready yourself for training. In the morning, you will begin walking the path of a Jedi Knight. May the Force be with you."

Sawn entered the room as her Master's steady footsteps echoed back down the duracrete hallway behind her. It was plain and simple, with one bed and a mid-sized desk cluttering the otherwise vacant bedroom, a small closet lay in the back-right corner of the room as well. The walls were all red, as was the carpet, the sheets of her bed; even the desk looked as if it'd been crafted from a redwood tree.

She slipped off her backpack and placed the holocron on her desk, alongside a photo of her mother, and hung the few clothes she had in the closet, surprised to find two beige Jedi robes already hanging in the closet. She didn't much care for the Jedi attire, but she would respect their tradition, after all, they had accepted her into their society.

Of course, she had many reservations and questions about this place. She'd heard all kinds of stories about Luke Skywalker and his Jedi Training Academies, so why had she never heard of such a place in her own stretch of space? And did they have contact with Skywalker's Jedi? How many true Masters were there here? Had they ever seen battle? Who was to be her lightsaber instructor, when that time finally came? Would it be that incompetent she'd seen in the fields on the way in? She certainly hoped not.

Falling back on her bed, Sawn smiled, feeling as if she was finally at peace, finally _home._ Tomorrow she would start her training, and she couldn't think of anything she'd rather do.

The first months were…humbling, to say the least. Turning ten years old sometimes felt like it was the biggest accomplishment she'd made. Aside from a few simple hibernation trances, Sawn could hardly use the Force at all. She could _feel _it, certainly, but putting it to practical use seemed impossible. While other students -- even one or two that had come to the complex after her -- were spinning rocks around their heads, Sawn could hardly make a leaf move in the wind.

The Masters told her she had a great understanding of using a Jedi trance, that was why she'd been able to slip into those dream-like states on hyperspace routes inside her clawcraft. She could slip into a healing trance, meditation trance, resting trance, and a few others, but all were elementary, and to her, pointless. Who cares if she could sleep more peacefully than other Jedi? She wanted to be able to slice Dark Jedi to pieces with her lightsaber, but she knew better than to voice that opinion in front of the Masters.

She knew with her understanding of trances that she'd have no trouble learning a battle trance, but the Masters would have nothing of it until she mastered the elementary training first. And so she poured over countless books that she'd hoped would give her insight on the Force, meditated in every motivational location she could find, trained twice as hard as any other Jedi, until she finally began to grasp small bits of the Force.

After six moths she finally successfully levitated her first rock for a sustained period of time, and at seven she could spin many objects around her at once. With that the floodgates appeared to be open, and at nine months she could sense sentient life with the Force from far distances, and after ten months she was able to draw on the Force to consciously reenergize her legs during a run, or make inhuman twenty foot vertical leaps.

After one full year of Jedi training she could sense inanimate objects in the Force, she could fall into deep trances at will, and seamlessly reemerge from them as well. Fourteen months after her arrival saw her finally move to the second floor of the Academy, giving her access to an entire new library that increased her knowledge and understanding even more.

It was fifteen months, twelve days, and eighteen hours after her arrival -- she'd been counting -- at the Academy when it finally happened.

She felt him coming, about a hundred meters before he arrived at her door, and as such Sawn eased out of her routine morning meditation trance, and opened the door from her bed a few meters away just as the Master was about to knock.

He smiled when the door opened for him, offering Sawn a small nod of approval. "Apprentice Sawn, I believe today is going to be very special for you."

She felt his joy for her through the Force, and knew he was testing her. He wasn't going to speak his surprise, so he was inviting her to open herself up to the Force and decipher his thoughts. She stretched out and found what he wanted her to almost immediately, a smile quickly spreading across her face.

"Lightsaber?" She asked, though it was more a statement than question. She was finally going to hold one of the elegant weapons in her hand.

Master Jace continued to smile, knowing how dearly and how long she'd always wanted to use a lightsaber. "When your dressed, head over to the lightsaber practice field. Master Draken will take it from there."

She tried to hide her elation, but knew her Master had easily picked it up through the force. She nodded solemnly, years of military training allowing her to control her facial expressions, and replied, "Yes Master," in a voice decrepit with emotion, though a minor force sensitive in a pool of ysalamari couldn't have missed her jubilation.

When the tall Chiss left, Sawn mentally brought the door closed again and threw herself back on the bed, squealing and giggling like the little girl she was. She glanced over at her desk, where behind a few books and the picture of her mother, the holocron stood idle, still a mystery to her after more than a year in its company. But she felt that soon its mystery would be revealed, and couldn't stave off the elation that this wasn't a hopeful wisp of the imagination, but a sign from the Force.

Ten minutes later she stood grinning from ear to ear in the circle of Master Draken's lightsaber training course, hanging on every syllable of every word he said. It was a new class, so no one in the group had used a lightsaber before, and Sawn was determined to be the best of the bunch.

"Shii-Cho is the introductory, and most basic, form of light saber combat," Master Draken said, regarding all the students in the class. "It is primarily defensive in nature, and it utilizes simple horizontal strokes to deflect enemy attacks, whether it be by blaster, lightsaber, or some other type of weapon."

To demonstrate, he detached the cylindrical weapon from his belt and flipped the ignition switch, an elegant blue beam hissing to life with the action. Holding the weapon vertically he demonstrated the defensive posturing of Form I. His feet planted firmly, shoulder-length apart, the saber master moved the blade back and forth, as if deflecting wide arcing shots aside. After a short demonstration Master Draken switched his grip so that the blade was horizontal in front of him, and he proceeded to move the lightsaber up and down, as if parrying overhead strikes or sweeping undercuts. Sawn recognized its flaws immediately.

"But Master Jedi, what of diagonal slashes? Or combination attacks that force a blade away? What of a straight thrust or stab? Even a -"

"Enough, young apprentice," the Master interrupted her, a small smile tugging at the corners of his lips and pressing small dimples into his cheeks. "Today we learn only the very basics of a very basic form of combat. Your concerns will be addressed in time, but until then, you must learn the rudimentary aspects of swordplay before attempting the advanced.

"Pick up your training sabers, young apprentices, and your training will begin."

And so it did. For three weeks Sawn held her tongue as she mastered every technique she was taught of the pathetically useless Form I Shii-Cho. She could parry any attack thrown at her, by any of the students, as each was on the same boring trajectory with the same intent and lack of menace that would doom her in a true duel.

When they finally began to learn the basics of attack, Sawn was horrified that they were taught only side-to-side slashes and overhead strikes; all blows easily intercepted by a foe's weapon. One time Sawn had foregone the Shii-Cho form of attack and had come in from an angle, taking her opponent completely by surprise and pushing him to the ground, only to be chastised and banned from the training ring for three full days.

She'd been a tad more obedient after that, but was still thoroughly frustrated when they began learning basic Shii-Cho sequences in the fifth week, none more than four strikes long and all focusing on more defense than attack. She understood the sentiment enough, if a young Jedi was going to be attacked, it would probably be by a more experienced and powerful adversary, and by focusing on defense the Apprentice could hopefully withstand the assault long enough for help to arrive.

But Sawn was different from them, all of the young Apprentices, and everyone knew it. She had an inherent ability for battling within the Force; while other students of her age could twirl boulders around their heads or heal wounds Sawn thought irreparable, Sawn found her calling in clashing blades with another, and all the trances involved in doing so.

She was not strong in the Force, she'd realized that in her first weeks at the Academy. In fact, she figured she was one of, if not the, weakest Force user on the planet. Her desire for success and burning ambition were all that kept her afloat at the Academy. She was the best with a lightsaber -- or training saber anyways -- only because she trained harder than anyone else. While other apprentices buried their noses in the high-looped scripts of ancient Jedi scrolls detailing wonders and powers beyond any mortal's understanding, she swung her practice saber through practiced sequences all through the night, forgoing any understanding of the mysteries of the Force to instead focus on those things she excelled at.

As the weeks progressed Sawn was able to fall into such a deep battle trance that she could analyze and detect what attack an enemy would throw at her two to three moves before they did so. As she mastered and memorized each of the fifty-odd sequences she'd learned, Sawn could now recognize them when used against her, and plan accordingly. Before she'd even realized it was a well-practiced technique, Sawn had begun combining the sequences, flowing seamlessly from one into the next, even adding or subtracting certain strategic blows as she saw fit, believing her adjustments to ancient techniques to be improvements.

Her meditations, likewise, grew more powerful by the day. When Master Jace had first introduced her to this unlimited channel of energy, she'd been flabbergasted at the results it yielded. She could spend an hour in a trance that would fuel her energies for a day, one day in a healing state cured her of maladies that would take bacta a week, a meditation trance briefly granted her access to the wonders of the Force that eluded her in pure consciousness. She thought it strange that she was a more powerful Jedi in a near state of unconscious than when awake and fully aware; but since the Force was supposed to be an unconscious extension of her being, she wagered that there was some significance in her ability to control it from a trance.

It happened almost two full months after her lightsaber training began, she detected his presence in the Force only because she'd enveloped herself in a brief meditation trance, focusing her energies before a restless night of perfecting her already-perfected knowledge of Shii-Cho saber techniques. She knew all of them now, or at least all those she'd been taught, and could actually blend all fifty sequences into one prolonged attack. She was only able to do it when in the deepest of battle trances, with hours of rest and meditation beforehand, but it could be done. And after only two months of training…she would have smiled at the thought if not for her visitor walking in at that moment, she slipped out of her trance to greet him.

"Master Jace," she stated, eyes creasing down a bit at the corners from the flexing of her cheeks, it was about as close as a Chiss-trained military operative was capable of coming to a smile in an ordinary situation.

"Apprentice Sawn," he responded, instantly reminding her of why she preferred this place to the Academy she'd grown up on. Everyone here was referred to by their core names, none of their full names were ever used, though she could surmise that a few adepts on the planet came from important families. Thisan, a very capable telekinetic adept three years her senior and one level below her in the bunker's living arrangement was certainly from one such family; if it weren't for his high shoulder posture and crisp, stern personality she could have surmised both the _Mitth_ family name and _Nuruodo_ domain simply from the conjecture of his core name. But such things were immaterial here, and while Thisan was certainly important at some place in this galaxy he was no more so than any other adept on the wasted grounds of Home; and that's how Sawn liked it.

"It's been a long time since you've visited me outside of lessons, Master," she said, suspecting his visit held some importance.

"Ah, yes, I have sensed your development and thought it best to leave you be, until you reached a point where more guidance was needed."

"Am I to move to the third level then, Master?" she asked, realizing that this conversation was progressing much like the one they'd had before her first relocation. Studying his face, she knew the answer without the Force, but also that he had more news that just simple room-changing plans.

"You will move in the morning," he smiled, offering her a small nod of respect. "I also must commend you on your decision to follow in the Padawan tradition -- even if you have yet to achieve that rank -- in braiding your hair as you have."

Sawn nodded back, the long, single braid marking a young man or woman as a Jedi Padawan lapping against her left eye as she did so. In one of the few books she'd consumed herself in not pertaining to lightsaber combat, she'd learned that it was a tradition of the Jedi of the Old Republic to grow a long braid to hang from their bangs. When it was deemed appropriate by their Masters to partake in the Jedi Trials, and subsequently pass the said trials, the Padawan's Master would slice the braid off with their lightsaber, anointing the young Jedi as a full-fledged Jedi Knight. It was an event Sawn yearned for even now, years, perhaps decades, away from when it might actually occur.

"I have noticed that your lightsaber proficiency is beyond any of the adepts in this institution; even some of the Padawans and Knights feel their only true advantage over you in combat is their far superior knowledge of multiple lightsaber forms against your understanding of just one."

Sawn sucked in a deep breath through her nose, not having expected the immense praise. She was not accustomed to receiving it, as none was offered in her Chiss Ascendancy training and Master Draken did not seem to care for her much…most likely because they both knew she would one day surpass him in skill with the lightsaber. "I…" she wasn't sure how to respond, but knew deception would be detected by her Master through the Force, and as such responded truthfully. "I am inclined to agree, sir."

Her Master quirked one bushy eyebrow up in surprise, and Sawn feared that she may have cost herself whatever gift her Master had been prepared to offer her. He regarded her for a moment before speaking, his voice deep with knowledge and wisdom, trained by years of projecting the Force. "Your confidence is commendable, young adept," he said, referring to her as an adept rather than Apprentice, meaning he was trying to teach her a lesson that should bridge from adept to Apprentice, and as she was an Apprentice, a lesson she should already be cognizant of. "but beware allowing yourself arrogance. An arrogant Jedi often falls to evil. I would not wish that happen to you, my young Apprentice."

"I apologize sir," she responded, again addressing him as she would a superior rather than a teacher, the process drilled into her by years of military training, it was unconscious to her when she said one or the other in reaction to being dressed-down. "I try to check my arrogance, but I will always be confident of my abilities. If I presume myself weak, then I will become weak, and unfit to live the life as a Jedi. I will not die after a life of shame."

"There is no death-"

"There is the Force," Sawn recited from the Jedi code, knowing it would please her Master. She felt a little guilty about leading him into the recital with her mention of death, but she knew that he would approve of her knowledge of the Jedi Code, making him more amicable to divulge whatever gift it was he'd brought her.

"Very good Sawn. I appreciate your honesty." After a moment's hesitation, her Master opened his long scarlet robes and withdrew a cylinder that made Sawn gasp…a lightsaber! Was she ready?

"I sense your excitement and am glad for it," he began, Sawn's heart pounding against the beaming sapphire nestled against her chest, eyes unable to shift their focus from the beautiful weapon. "but I must inform you that this lightsaber is dormant, and holds no crystal to activate its power. I am entrusting it to you, so that you may learn its intricacies, _feel_ a saber in your hands, so that someday you may have better knowledge when it comes to constructing your own."

"T-Thank you Master," she stammered, accepting the aluminum handle from her Master, hardly aware that he'd turned and left the room to allow Sawn privacy with her new best friend.

Something clicked inside her, and she didn't know how or why, but her small fingers rummaged through the joints of the weapon, taking it apart, piece-by-piece, until her eyes fell upon the housing section where a crystal would be stored. Never before had she been more aware of the sapphire pressed against her neck than in that moment, when she pulled off the chain that had never left her neck in the six years it had rested there. Wordlessly and effortlessly she removed the sapphire from her necklace and widened her eyes in wonder as the stone shaped itself to fit inside the aluminum plating of the lightsaber.

She didn't know nor care what was happening as she carefully pieced the weapon back together, embracing the warmth in her hands, arms, and finally her heart that she knew came from the crystal lodged deep within the lightsaber rather than the device itself.

She thumbed the blade to life, a low hum filling the room along with a bright blue light -- and yet the revelations were only beginning. A nanosecond after the blade flickered to life, Sawn heard a strange rumbling from her left, and turned in wide-eyed amazement as the holocron she'd longed to know the secrets of for so long began to open, its flaps descending to the sides, and a small blue hologram of a sentient being rising from the middle.

As the character lifted back the dark hood of his cloak Sawn recognized the creature as a Twi'lek, a creature not found in the Chiss region of space but abundant in the known galaxy. Slowly, his head rose to stare at Sawn, who'd been holding her breath since activating the lightsaber now glowing at her side. The hologram spoke.

"I am the Dark Lord Kas'im."


End file.
